


Memories of the Sun

by Toastie_Pan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Heartbreak, they're good bois they're just hurting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27878218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toastie_Pan/pseuds/Toastie_Pan
Summary: Following Lady Lunafreya's blessing and Pryna's help, the King's Own make their way towards the Haven, exhausted physically and emotionally. But it seems the light of the Star gave them one last gift.One last heartache.Follow on fromScorched Resolve
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Memories of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This was my contribution to the PDF version of the Lost in Wars Zine! This follows on from the fic piece 'Scorched Resolve' and is best to read that one first to make sense of this.

It was quiet as they made their way back to the Haven. Barely even a wisp of wind to move the bare branches above them. The demons were clearly refusing to spawn in that moment and the three exhausted men were all too happy to take advantage of the situation by gathering everything they could from the old lair, sending it to the Armiger and running, unsure for how long their luck would hold. They had not seen each other for so many years and that distance stretched between them like Taelpar Crag. They had nothing they could think to say, so they just…didn’t. Just did their work and went, all three lost within their own thoughts.  


Heading through the trees, weaving past knarred roots and the remains of some unfortunate creature or other, Prompto looked around the darkness of Duscae. This had been where it had all really started. When the joy of a simple trip to see the Prince wed had turned into the horror of losing their home and loved ones, this area had been where they had finally managed to grasp some level of happiness and start to enjoy themselves again. The beauty of Duscae giving them a place they could at least start to heal. They had awoken to a beautiful green landscape, cool air rising of the cloudy water, the area a balm for their shattered souls and the oppressive emptiness and dry heat of Leide.  


Prompto stepped past a collection of mushrooms at the base of a slowly dying tree with a quiet sigh. Only a few years before and he would have bounded up and down excitedly at finding something simple like mushrooms, something he knew Ignis would be able to turn, through some form of magic or wizardry, it something wonderful to eat. But that wasn’t something they could do anymore. Ignis couldn’t cook and the mushrooms were no longer edible with the Scourge parasite manifesting into most anything nowadays. It was best not to try your luck on those anymore. Best not to take the risk of vomiting black within the hour.  


The darkness of his thoughts made him frown as he picked his way past the trees, surely he should be focusing on better things? They had just escaped death. He had reunited with his old buddies and they had all been blessed by the Oracle herself, her gift of sunlight no matter how brief it had been, a needed ray of hope in their darkest moment. He blinked as he looked to the ground by his feet to navigate around fallen branches, but when he blinked again, the landscape had shifted.  


Flowers…swaying in the breeze. Grass, fresh and verdant. Prompto rubbed at his eyes but it didn’t change anything, his eyes stayed in whatever memory they were in, remembering sunlight, the heat warming his neck and the sound of another pair of boots in front of him.  


‘What are we looking for again?’  


Prompto jumped as the voice came unbidden in his mind, his eyes on the ground before him suddenly didn’t see bones and death, but the bright green grass, the little clumps of flowers where butterflies always gathered, the bouncing stalks of peppers moving the wind and then heart-stoppingly, a pair of black boots with soles the colour of blood that had stopped and turned towards him.  


Prompto stopped, not aware of Gladiolus and Ignis behind him, only aware of the boots that were suddenly in his vision before him and the sickening feeling of fear that crawled up his throat. Prompto wanted to move, oh he wanted to. He wanted to look up and see the face once more and simply remember that day they’d gone looking for…-  


‘Truffles, bud.’ Prompto whispered, ‘the Cetoblepas are crazy for them.’  


‘Huh, go figure.’ The spectre answered. Prompto felt his heart thud as the boots started walking away, he’d couldn’t just let him go like that! He couldn’t, no he had a chance, a small chance to see him he can’t lose this chance!  


Ignis’ head moved to the side at Prompto’s whisper, having not quite caught the words. He was about to say something but suddenly the body before him sprinted forward.  


‘Prompto!’  


Ignis’ shout alerted Gladiolus who had been watching their back, but when he’d caught up he could only see the edges of a silhouette disappearing into the darkness.  


‘Damn it, what happened?’ Gladiolus asked, turning to Ignis who was still startled, head turning this way and that trying to figure which was Prompto went.  


‘Trying to figure that out myself. He said something then ran off.’  


‘What’d he say?’  


Ignis shook his head, ‘I could not hear, he said it so quietly.’  


‘Either way we can’t leave him. Come on.’  


Gladiolus moved ahead, Ignis following. Gladiolus was in no mood to lose sight of their friend so soon after finding each other again. They had been blessed by the Oracle herself and the warmth of sunlight still pressed against his skin after nearly a decade of darkness and it would be a poor thank you for such a gift if they went and got slaughtered by demons.  


They were not spawning at the moment, but their luck wouldn’t hold forever.  


They had to get to the Haven, _now._  


  


* * *

  


Further ahead, Prompto followed those red soles boots through the last of the woods. He remembered it, the sunlight the Oracle had shown him had forced his memories back from the buried tomb he had locked them away in and now all he could see was sunlight and all he could hear was the amused huff of his best friend ahead of him.  


Truffle hunting. They had been going truffle hunting. It had all been an excuse, just some random bit of fun to prove that he could make his friend smile again. He’d seen a small footnote at the bottom of an article in the Coernix and that led him to the crazy idea to get up close and personal to the largest creature in Duscae’s wetlands.  


Finally Prompto found himself at the edge of the water, eyes still resolutely fixed upon the ground and those black boots before him. He gasped having not realised how fast he had been going, his body shaking with the exertion.  


‘Right, where do you want me?’  


That voice. That quiet voice. Soft and easy with that little edge of mischief that always got them into so much trouble. The sunlit scene before him wavered as tears sprang to his eyes. He was terrified. Terrified that if he looked up, he’d be gone but he knew that he’d hate himself more this memory faded and he lost the chance-  


‘Noct!’  


He blinked, his cry falling from him as he forced his gaze up to see nothing but the still dark water and the great skeleton of the Catoblepas long since dead rising from the marsh.  


Prompto didn’t notice his legs giving out, or even the cold of the water as it soaked into his trousers. He could only simply sit there staring out onto the marsh, at the horribly sad skeleton that used to be a beautiful majestic creature that they had enticed across the marsh with the promise of truffles.  


In that moment it became just far too much. The first battle for the lair just for the promise of a single can of food that might keep someone alive one day more, the acceptance that he was dying and he may not see his best friend again only for his other friends to appear. Prompto was so happy, just to see them again. Faces he hadn’t seen in so many years finally with him again and just when he thought that was it for them, happy that he wasn’t going to die alone, suddenly he was saved by the same dog that had saved him all those years ago.  


He felt it all roll up in his chest, felt it pull viciously against his heart and in his throat. Looking up just to see that great skeleton once more.  


He screamed.  


Up by the ridge, having just spotted the old Haven both Gladiolus and Ignis turned and ran, spotting the small figure by the water’s edge.  


‘Shit, kid. You wanna bring all of Duscae down on us?!’ Gladiolus cried, sliding down to Prompto’s side, clapping a hand hurriedly over his mouth to muffle his cries. Prompto didn’t notice, too lost in his hurt, the growing pain in his heart that threatened to overwhelm him spreading bit by bit, feeling that it would drown him…  


_‘Noct…’_   


The exhaled syllable from his side had Prompto gasping out of his muffled screams, eyes wide as he turned to Gladio, whose eyes were fixed on something just at the water’s edge. Gladiolus watched in awe and horror as the light of sunlight once more filled his eyes, a familiar black clad form before him, casting an easy line into the waters of the marsh.  


Prompto watched Gladiolus’ slow smile scarcely daring to allow himself to think, to hope once more that he…  


The thud next to him startled him out of his tears and Gladiolus’ hand slipped slack from Prompto’s mouth as Ignis collapsed heavily to the ground. Ignis’ hand clutched hard on Prompto’s shoulder, shaking violently.  


‘Iggs-?’ Prompto whispered, but Ignis didn’t hear him, didn’t hear him at all as tears ran unchecked down his scarred face.  


‘Hey, Specs. What’s the forecast for today?’  


‘How is this possible?’ Ignis muttered, heart cracking beneath his jacket as eyes blinded to the world around him for the past eight hard years suddenly saw the beauty of sunlight and the swaying green grass that surrounded them. Eyes that had been burned away by the unforgiving force of the Lucii Kings suddenly witnessing once again his Prince stood at the water’s edge, smiling that quiet smile as he adjusted his jacket over his shoulders just as he had that first morning after defeating Deadeye, when they had happily spent a day at the fishing spot nearby, content to bask in a momentous victory when all else had turned to so much dust.  


Prompto looked back out to the water, his tears still running. Everything was dark. It seemed whatever blessing had been placed on him to see his friend had passed to his companions, but he himself had lost his chance. Something inside him went cold and sharp at the realisation and he angrily stood, slamming both Gladiolus and Ignis’ hands away before moving away from the still water filled with dead things.  


The strangled cry from Ignis nearly broke his stride, but Prompto just kept walking away towards the Haven, he might even go further, towards Fociaugh, he’d worked alone all these years, it would mean nothing to work alone again-  


‘Oi!’  


Gladiolus’ barked shout had Prompto rolling his eyes, frustration roiling in his stomach as he stomped up the hill.  


‘Prompto!’  


Ignis’ call however had Prompto slow. He’d never heard Ignis sound like that, even after Altissia, during the training, the fighting, the horrors that they suffered, Ignis had never sounded so…  


So _broken…_  


The realisation slammed into Prompto’s chest like one of his own crackshots, his anger dissipating as he turned to the two beaten figures behind him, the larger clutching the smaller to him to stop him collapsing onto the ground. Ignis was shaking violently, his mouth stammering as he tried to find his words.  


‘Igs…’ Prompto whispered, just as Ignis pushed Gladiolus sharply to the side before turning the other way and vomiting into the grass. ‘Shit…’  


Anger and upset slammed aside, Prompto jogged down the small bit of the hill he had stomped up to lend a hand, even as Gladiolus rubbed Ignis’ back as he retched. He went to reach out a hand but stopped before he made contact, snatching his hand away. He didn’t know what on Eos that strange vision was or what it did and the last thing he wanted was to send Ignis into a deeper spiral because if anything it seemed that the visions meant that in that moment Ignis could see and it made Prompto sick to think of what that must have been like, for it to suddenly be ripped away again.  


‘Prom?’  


Prompto snapped out of his thoughts, glancing over at Gladiolus, surprised by the lack of anger in his eyes. No reprimand was there, no shouting demanding answers, it was just a strange calm that had settled on his shoulders and Prompto unwittingly found himself latching onto it desperately looking for an anchor in the storm.  


‘I need you to get the fire going up at the Haven. Get the tent and table set up, you got it?’  


Orders. Okay orders Prompto could do. That was easy.  


‘What about Igs?’ he whispered, looking down at the tactician who had thankfully finished retching but was still shivering as though he had just pulled himself out of Ghorovas Rift.  


‘I got him, Prom. We’ll follow.’ He nodded, before turning back to the man in his arms, whispering quietly to him.  


Prompto stepped back before nodding to himself and turning, jogging up to the Haven that quietly glowed, looking over the plains south of Wiz’s old outpost. Surprisingly out of breath, Prompto immediately moved to get the fire going, having become proficient at it after so many years alone in the darkness.  


It took him longer than he would have admitted to to remember how to summon the cooking table and utensils from the armiger but he managed it. That organised, he pulled out the chairs, placing them around the crackling fire and it was just as his two companions crossed the Haven’s boundary, safe from any demons that might consider spawning in the eternal night that Prompto summoned the tent.  


But it wasn’t his tent he’d been using that he summoned. Lost in thought and trapped in familiar motions, he had summoned the old tent.  


_Their_ tent.  


The canvas thudded to the ground in a shower of sparks even as Ignis and Gladiolus made their way onto the glowing stone. Ignis winced at the sound, Gladiolus staring at it impassively before moving Ignis over to one of the chairs.  


‘Rest for a bit yeah? I’ll get you a drink.’ He muttered before striding over to the cooler and grabbing a bottle. Prompto shifted where he stood, feeling like a mess, a kid who had spilled milk and was just waiting for the reprimand.  


‘Drink, Blondie. Sugar’ll help.’ Gladiolus said, in a rumble as he walked back to Ignis, one less bottle of Jetty’s in his hand. Prompto looked to his gloved hands, seeing the bottle there having not noticed that he’d grabbed it on reflex, its condensation dripping into the material of his gloves even as his eyes blurred once more.  


‘Prom.’  


He looked up to see Gladiolus gazing intently at him as Ignis sipped his own bottle behind him, grimacing at the sharpness of the carbonation. Getting the hint, Prompto bit his gloves off, pulling on the cap and taking a grateful swig, the cool liquid soothing on his throat from where, he belatedly realised, he had been screaming not ten minutes before.  


Sniffing, Prompto pulled his beanie off, shoving both it and his gloves into his pockets before placing his bottle on the table and stripping off his jacket, his tank left on underneath, his arms bare. Turning to the tent, he psyched himself up, shaking his hands and bouncing on his feet before grabbing a pole and getting to work.  


It was slow going, the canvas was heavy and the poles more so, Gladiolus having insisted intensely before they had left on something hard wearing, much to the group’s later appreciation. Prompto found himself sweating before long. He was struggling with getting a corner correctly taut when a large hand clasped his shoulder making him jump.  


‘Sorry, Prom.’ Gladiolus rumbled, before throwing a thumb behind his shoulder, ‘keep an eye on Iggy yeah? I’ll finish up here.’  


Prompto glanced over Gladiolus’ expansive bulk to see Ignis prepping something at the counter, his own jacket discarded next to Gladiolus’ on their respective chairs.  


‘He cookin’?’ Prompto asked, incredulously, passing the cord over when Gladiolus gestured for it, who nodded at the question.  


‘You’re in for a treat, Blondie. Our Lord Tactician has gotten damn good.’ He grinned as wide smile that Prompto found himself mirroring, a slip of joy making him feel almost human again.  


‘On it, Big Guy!’ he saluted before bouncing away, Gladiolus’ chuckle following. ‘Hey, what’s cookin’ good lookin’?’  


Ignis’ lips parted slightly before he quirked a small smile, turning back to his pan.  


‘Oh this and that, Prompto. I hope you don’t mind me commandeering the counter.’  


‘It never stopped being yours Iggy!’ he smiled, bouncing round to the opposite side, eying the onions and wild garlic that had been chopped.  


Ignis smiled, more sure this time and Prompto was glad to notice that his shaking had stopped. Loath to bring it up again, Prompto bit his lip, his fingers drumming a bouncing rhythm against the table as Ignis poured some water into the pan, sending it sizzling.  


‘Prompto,’ Ignis sighed, clanging the pan as he shook its contents, ‘speak before you combust.’  


‘Uh-heh, hehe busted.’ Prompto muttered, scratching at his head. Ignis’ head tilted slightly at the sound, that look of intense focus pulling at his features.  


‘Prompto? Sorry, but…are you not wearing your wristbands?’  


Prompto stopped, eyes wide; a chocobo in the headlights. Ah…the sound.  


‘M-man you’re sharper than ever, Mama Iggy.’ He chuckled nervously, bringing his arm down, thumbing absently across the stark ink across his wrist.  


‘It was not a reprimand, Prompto.’ Ignis smiled, grabbing some salt from the side and adding it to the pan before continuing his motions with the pan. ‘If anything, I…’ he paused, ‘I’m proud of you and honoured that you would feel so comfortable around us.’  


Prompto stammered, his hand pressing over the brand, not wanting to say that he had honestly forgotten about it, his Niflheim garb simply covering it. Deciding it was better to just accept it, he let go of his wrist, allowing the cool air to wrap around it instead. He sighed shakily, letting the sensation wash over him.  


Loud pings echoed through the small camp as Gladiolus got to work on the pins, the tent nearly finished. The lingering tension faded with the familiar and nostalgic sounds and Prompto remembered what he had wanted to say.  


‘Um…Igs?’ he started, Ignis humming in response as he added a few more spices to the pan, ‘what…um what do you think that was? What- what we saw?’  


Ignis frowned as he moved the pan, absently picking up the wooden spoon and moving the nearly finished dish carefully to stop it from burning.  


‘I don’t know,’ he answered quietly, ‘I was hoping you could shed some light on that.’  


Prompto sighed, shoulders slumping. Still a pun-meister…  


‘I dunno,’ he replied, pulling at his bang in front of his face. ‘I mean, maybe it was part of- of that blessing that Lady Lunafreya did? A reminder ye know, of what- what we’re fighting for?’  


Ignis was quiet as he tilted the pan around, muscles in his forearms bunching from the weight, old scars lighting up as they caught the firelight.  


‘I daresay that would be a likely theory.’ Ignis said almost in a whisper, ‘A nice thought indeed.’  


They descended into silence, each lost to their own thoughts, until finally Ignis asked Prompto to gather some bowls and cutlery and Gladiolus announced that the tent was finished. With that done, all three sat down to a simple but delicious hot meal before clambering into the tent.  


The void left by the missing member of their party was not mentioned as they went to sleep and if they each slept a little closer together than usual that night, if they found comfort in knowing that each of them were together in the darkness and if they each held onto the bright image of their Prince smiling in the daylight fast in their hearts before waking and heading to Lestallum?  


Well that was their business.  


As the King’s Men.  


As those who remembered the Sun.


End file.
